I found an area that had more level pavement, and was able to ride straight, then started working on right turns, although the lefts are still much easier. Wierd, eh?
I managed to do several free mounts last night, and what worked for me was to start with the left pedal at 8 o’clock, and push off with the right while jumping up on the seat. That bit of momentum really helps!
Nice progress.
Keep working on those freemounts.
A little update. I can now freemount just about every other try! I’m getting the turning figured out, but am now having more trouble turning left than right. I’ll take that as a good sign…
Yeah, and a sign that it’s time to start practising riding in a figure of 8.
It’s an irritation but well worth it.
That sounds like good advice! Thanks Gild! Now I just wish I could ride more than one evening per week!
Sounds like you’re on quite a hectic schedule.
What keeps you so busy?
Let’s see, work, family, motorbike racing, garden work, house maintenance, firewood…
Up here, we have to cram a lot of activity into the short summer months. But, we can ride a uni at midnight and not need lights!
Every dark cloud, hey?
We should start doing all our angles in radians.
“if you want to turn right just turn (3 x pi)/2 left”
Corrected.
I usually go counter clock wise in circles becuase I can’t turn right very easy
No dark clouds here!
I can turn either way just fine now! Still having trouble doing a free mount though. Oh well, more practice!
Yeah, that is the ticket.
It does help to pay attention to small details of succesfull mounts and making sure that you replicate them as closely as you can.
This may include, but are not limited to, the angle of the ‘other’ pedal, the position of your foot on the ground reletive to the uni and the angle of the crank you’re about to step on.
RDJeff-
I’m about where you are. On August 1st (about 3 weeks ago) I purchased a 24" Torker LX and a Coker Deluxe. I decided to learn on the Torker, and then, when I felt good enough, move up to the Coker. At the time, I thought it would take me, at least, 6 months to feel confident enough to move up to the Coker. I guess you could say the Coker was my incentive to learn. Well, after only about a week of riding the Toker, I could do a static mount and ride about 300 feet (around my cul-de-sac). So, I decided to move up to the Coker. The Coker, in some sense, seemed almost easier to ride than the 24”. Although, the mounting has been the most difficult part. For the first few days, I mounted the Coker while holding on to a mailbox to start off. The first time I got on, I remember thinking; ‘what the hell am I doing?’ I was dripping in sweat. My start offs were very shaky and I seemed to get stuck against the curb in the gutter. So, I watched several videos of people doing a kind of running jump on the Coker. That type of mount, at first, seemed to be too suicidal for me. (I’m sure there is a term for that type of mount, but I don’t know what it is called) So, I tried to do a static mount, but I was only successful about 1 in every 7 tries. Eventually, I was brave enough to attempt the running mount. Although, at this point, at least, I wouldn’t say it’s a running start. My wife says it looks like I’m sneaking up on my Coker. LoL My street has a slight grade to it, so I started off going down hill, which seemed to help a lot. Now, I’m successfully mounting almost every try, maybe it is closer to 1 out of 2 tries, which was a huge improvement for me. Now that I can mount most of the time, I am now working on my turns. I also seem to have this wobble in my wheel as I pedal. I can turn, not every time, but I can turn. I have to use the entire cul-de-sac, though, to turn. I can go both left and right turns, but I am definitely not very good at it yet. I think I’ll try doing some figure eights and see if that helps or I might try setting up some cones in the street and attempt doing slalom. Right now, I’m just concentrating my efforts in those 2 areas: eliminating the wobble and perfecting my turning. If anyone has any tips, that would be great!